


On the Run

by BlackQat



Series: Brotherhood - It Keeps You Runnin' [1]
Category: Brotherhood (TV 2006)
Genre: Actor Jason Isaacs, F/M, Gangsters, Gen, Lannnnguage!, Michael Caffee is a bad bad boy, Violence, and a stupid cousin, and a vain Mom, swears a'plenty, with a beautiful girlfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-03-28 02:06:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackQat/pseuds/BlackQat
Summary: Michael Caffee is on the run. Yeah.Great show you made of that Michael, you stupid eejit.Freddie Cork wins the Irish game and the Italians beat out the Irish. The Hill is dead.Long live the fuckin’ Hill.---------------------------------------------------------------------This may expand into a series of somewhat related chapters or stories, based on "Brotherhood" with Jason Isaacs, who plays such delicious bad boys.





	1. It Keeps You Runnin'

Michael Caffee is on the run. Yeah. _Great show you made of that, you stupid fucker._ Freddie Cork wins the Irish side of Hill business and teams up with the Italians who will beat out the Irish. The Hill is fuckin' dead.

Long live the Hill.

He wonders how long his mom is going to be there. Will he ever see her, and the old place, again? He shrugs, and decides to call, at least, let her know he’s still alive.

If she even gives a shit. Colin’s her boy now. Dear Cousin Colin. Somehow, Colin, once insinuated into his family’s life, fucked Michael’s life up completely.

And now he’d taken _Kath_.

Michael gets the answering machine. Mom never did make an outgoing greeting, and Mike had forgotten to help her do it. He pictures himself, with his mom, making her smile, and telling her she sounds good on her message.

Well, now she has Colin. He can fuckin’ well do it if he can get his head out of his ass. _He acts more brain damaged than I am and he didn't even get the shit stomped and beat out of him._

“Hi Mom … it’s Michael. Just wanted to let you know … I’m okay.”

And … _and what? I’ve come down from a two-week spell of Benzedrine-popping insanity. I no longer have the urge to kill everybody in my immediate surroundings. I’m all alone now, and I don’t have my meds. If I try to get them someone will track me and find me and kill me._ _But at least I'm not paranoid anymore, ha.  
_

“Anyway. I’ll see ya.”

_Lame. “See ya?” Not fuckin’ likely. I’ll probably die at some random gas station pumping gas all over myself. Kath’s not here to help me anymore and I don’t have meds. FUCK._

_Well? Asshole?_ You’re _the one who started fuckin’ around on_ her. _She was faithful to you while you were out doing the whores and Molly the dental receptionist. Now she was a nice ride, though. Nice._

But _Kath._ Kath is like his wife, for chrissakes. He loves her, and her kids. Cursed and yelled about them, once he started popping Bennies, but ... loved reading to them, being a stepfather.

And loved sleeping with Kath, holding her slender, soft body in the night, waking to see her pretty blonde hair tangled on the pillow, her heart-shaped face with its sharp nose and great cheekbones. And those big blue eyes, opening to see him, and her slow smile and deep drawl, “well good morning.” And the times he teasingly says – said – “I’ll give you a good morning all right,” and kisses her and teases her and she rides him ….

But he supposes that’s all Colin’s thing now.

And maybe Colin doesn't threaten her with violence. Michael regrets that. He never would have done that, before the brain injury. _Would I?_

And the Rhode Island House Speakership, and a family of four kids and the title of Righteous Son all belong to Tommy. _Well, he deserves it._

_Lucky for him I left._

He’s got feelers out, here and there, Michael does. He still has some few friends left. When he talked to one this morning, she said she’d seen Colin around the Hill, but not Kath.

 _I mean to find that slippery bastard and find out what he did with Kath. If he hurt her he’s a dead man. Hell, if he_ fucked _her he’s a dead man._

_And I mean to find Kath._

Michael realizes, as he stares out the windshield of the stolen car with his dry bloodshot eyes, how much he misses her. How much he wants to forgive her, ask forgiveness, and win her back to him.

And how much he wants to live.

 


	2. From a Long Time Ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tale of three young Caffees.

**From a Long Time Ago**

The other middle-school kids have never seen Michael Caffey this pissed. Michael is a strong 7th grade boy of 12 and he is beating the crap out of Patrick Mullins, who’s 14 but still in 7th grade, the dumbass.

“Fight! Fight!” the kids are chanting and circling around. Recess hasn’t been this exciting since Michael and Paddy’s last fight, but that was over in seconds. Needless to say Michael won.

“What did you do to my sister, you fucker!” Michael swings and connects, hard, with Paddy’s cheekbone. Paddy’s already bleeding from the nose and one eyebrow is split. Michael’s blue eyes are cold as stones, and Paddy’s mouth is not running for the first time today. Patrick Mullins likes talking about what he wants to do to girls. He seldom does any of it, just talks, but today he tried something on with Mary Kate, and Michael saw it. Mary Kate is 12 years old, ten months younger than Michael, and Tommy, their brother, is 11 and the smartest boy in 6th grade.

Mary Kate, sitting with some friends who are handing her tissues, is dabbing her eyes and blowing her nose, turning her face away, feeling ashamed, both of what Patrick did and what Michael is doing. Because she knows Michael will get in trouble and Father is going to assign him extra hours of work around the school and Michael won’t do it all and will get into even more trouble. She loves Michael so much, but he makes it hard sometimes.

“Your brother is so cute,” Kath Parry says, apropos of nothing. Or does she like Michael because he fights a lot?

Of course Mary Kate didn’t invite Patrick’s advances, of course she doesn’t like his dirty hand up her skirt (and he’s tried it more than once), so she hauled off and smacked him, and Patrick smacked her back, at which point Michael jumped up, ran across the yard, head-butted him, made him stagger backwards, and started punching him in the face. Paddy did manage to get his hands up, but he’s no fighter. Michael’s been learning boxing in the Police Athletic League’s ring after school (“to manage his excess energy”) so he knows how to throw effective punches.

Sure enough, Father comes out of the school office, steaming along in his black soutane, and grabs Michael by the ear, putting him on his knees. Michael doesn’t cry out, or say a word, doesn’t even grimace. His face is like marble. Patrick scuttles away like a cockroach.

And look, here comes Tommy. Mary Kate’s spirits lighten a bit.

Tommy grabs Paddy’s ear. Tommy is tall for his age, and surprisingly strong when you think about Michael. He drags Paddy over to Father. “This boy put his hand up our sister’s skirt,” he reports. And Tommy is the most responsible boy and the best student in middle school, so teachers listen to him.

Father leans down to Michael. “Is this true, Michael?”

“Tommy doesn’t lie, Father,” Mike says, staring straight ahead.

“Mary Kate Caffey, come over here.” Sister Gertrude is out on the playground now, making a beeline for Father. Mary Kate walks slowly to the scene of the fray, looking at the ground and her black patent-leather shoes, reputed to reflect a girl’s underwear. If only Patrick had settled for that. He has always been a dirty boy in both senses of the word, irreligious (well, so is Michael, mostly), talking dirty to girls, and with unclean hands. When he touched Mary Kate’s thigh, his hand was clammy and she smacked his face so she could slip away from him.. All she can think of is a slimy snail or frog. What a nasty boy. And his mother, according to Rose Caffee, “is no better than she should be.”

“Mary Kate,” Sister Gertrude says. “Did this boy put his hand where … where it didn’t belong?”

“He put his hand up my skirt Sister. On my leg ... my thigh.”

Sister’s eyebrows fly up. Meanwhile Father is quizzing Michael.

“Michael Caffey did you use foul language?”

“Yes Father I did.”

“And did you strike the first blow?”

“Yes Father.” Michael is still looking straight ahead.

By now Sister Agathe, a strong, stout nun, is holding Patrick’s ear and talking with the youngest Caffee.

“Thomas Caffee did you see what Patrick Mullins did?”

“Yes I did Sister.”

“And what did he do?”

Tommy’s face gets red but his blue eyes are steady on Sister Agathe. “He touched my sister inappropriately.”

Mary Kate can see the ghost of a smile on Michael’s face.

_Bless Tommy and his silver tongue. Not to mention his unblemished reputation._

 


	3. Are You Gonna Worry for the Rest of Your Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael's in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. How the hell he ended up here he has no idea.

A dirty street in El Paso Texas. Or is it a dirty street in Ciudad Juarez? Michael Caffee has no idea at the moment. He’s drunk, trying to come down from speed.

Before a few weeks ago he never did drugs, never drank alcohol.

Before a few weeks ago his life wasn’t gone to shit.

Before a few weeks ago he’d been strong.

He’s let his hair grow out some, and has a beard now, but if the police have BOLOs out for him, his eyes, his most striking feature, will give him away. He wears sunglasses, but there are times you have to take them off.

_Blue eyes and black hair, his mother Rose would say. If you were a girl we’d have said you were a colleen back home. But I’m glad you’re a boy, Michael. You’ll be a big, strong man one day._

A big, strong man brought low.

_By my own ego? That AA stuff Pete used to talk … grandiosity … the kind of ego that says you’re better than anyone else and you can make it on your own, that you don’t need a Higher Power._

_The kind of ego I had._

_Fragile, that’s what it was, and that’s what Pete used to say, grandiosity was a fragile structure because it had no strong base. The strong base is your Higher Power and the Program._

Some weeks, Pete would talk about “white-knuckling it” or “being a dry drunk” … that meant he wasn’t working the steps, working the program. That usually meant he was shit at the job, too, so Michael encouraged him to stick with AA, stick with his sponsor, one day at a time, and all that stuff.

They were driving one day, collecting protection money at various stops, and on a long stretch Pete looked at Michael, a really long look, and said, “Did you ever do AA?”

Michael scoffed. “Fuck, no. I just decided I didn’t wanna be like my dad. He was a piece of shit mean drunk. He used to beat up my mom. Till one day he met my fist. I never took up drinking ‘cause of him. And I saw a lotta guys like him at Mulligans when we used to play pool, remember?”

“Oh yeah, fuckin’ old man Doherty, drunk by 10 a.m.!”

They laughed. The old man would just pass out, head on the bar, but Michael and Tommy’s old man had been a real bastard. Funny how drink did different things to different people. “Remember Murphy? Used to cry? Just sit still with tears running down his face?”

Pete said, “He always made me kinda sad. His whole family dead in that plane crash, poor guy.”

Michael always thought, at the back of his mind, that Pete was a puss. Pete was weak, that’s why he stuck by Michael, because he needed someone to look up to, needed someone to … direct him.

_But maybe I had it wrong. Maybe Pete acted the puss because I needed someone to push around. Maybe he knew that on some level. Maybe Pete was wise in some ways._

_Wow, maybe I ought to get a degree in Psychology. So fucking insightful all of a sudden._

A voice, behind him. “ ‘ey. _Cabron_.”

Michael takes a deep breath and straightens up. Last thing he remembers – before his great insights of a moment ago – he was in an alley, puking, then lost track. Can feel his money is still on him, his I.D.s. He’s sitting on a high curb now. _The curbs are really fuckin’ high here. Like they’re expecting a flood or something._

The voice again. “ _Cabron_.” Michael makes as if to stand, but before he can, a man settles next to him.

“You not from aroung, eh?”

Michael rubs his head and looks at the guy. “No.”

“I do a little travel, back and forth, El Paso, Juarez,” the man says. He’s reedy but stringy tough. Hair, bushy, short on the sides but long on top; brows, busy, mustache, prominent teeth, squinty brown eyes. Thin yellow shirt over a wife-beater.  “Look, my boss says you gotta clear out. He recognize a strong man when he sees it. He don’ want you messing in his business.” A resigned expression, eyes resolutely on Michael’s profile.

Michael laughs, shaking his head, looking between his feet at the gutter. “I’m fuckin’ drunk, I’m not messin’ in anybody’s business.”

“My boss says you gotta leave now. I’ll give you a ride back to El Paso.”

“Are you fuckin’ serious?”

He suddenly feels a gun in his ribs under his arm. “Yeah I’m fuckin’ serious, _pendejo_. If you know what’s good for you, you come with me now.”

Michael stands up, considers the possibility of punching the guy out, then sees the gleam of eyes in a black SUV, running at the curb. Cigar smoke curls out of a crack in the front passenger window; the A/C’s running, you can’t sit in a fucking car in fucking Mexico without A/C. There’s a shadow at the wheel and more shadows behind the important passenger.

In Providence, Michael would have walked right up to the window after clocking this _cabron_ guy. Here, he hopes he doesn’t have to go near that SUV. Inwardly he laughs, crime bosses everywhere love black SUVs. _So this must be your Freddie,_ cabron _guy. Your Michael,_ he thinks.

Michael jerks a thumb. “We riding in that?”

 _Cabron_ guy jerks his head in another direction, toward a convertible. “That. _Vamanos_. _Jefe_ ain’ gonna wait all day for us to get gone.”

Hyper aware now, Michael gets in the car. Sweet ride, a little flashy, but still, a well-preserved 1970s Caddy Fleetwood, brown pearlized paint, tan leather interior, tan ragtop. Sun broiled, the leather burns on the back of his legs, right through his jeans.

The guy gets in and starts the car, pulling out in a U-turn past the black SUV. It doesn’t follow them. Michael is on his guard though, this guy has a gun, and could be under orders to kill him. Why, Michael can’t figure, unless _Jefe_ ’s connected to the Italians in Providence or has an eye out to potential drug-dealing competition. _Wait, is he with the Sina Loa? Fuck. FUCK._

_Ironic if they kill me, cause that drug shit is over for me. ALL of it. Fuckin’ over._

“Wass your name, _cabron_?”

“Mike. You?”

“Armando.”

“You speak good English.”

“Fuck you, _Mike_ ,” Armando scoffs. “I live on the border.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Michael has no knife. No gun. No sap. Nothing. Just his wits and what’s left of his strength and reflexes, after weeks of popping bennies.

_I’m a fucking mess. And now I might just die because I’m a fucking mess. God damn it._

“You scared, Mike?”

“Should I be?” said in his best tough-guy voice.

“Yeah, nah. Look _Jefe_ recognized you, mang. His cousing, in Providence? Don’t know what you did but his cousing’s okay down here now. He almost got killed by some Armenians.”

Michael nods, neither confirming nor denying. “Okay.”

“You got I.D. and shit?”

“Yeah.” Michael breathes deep to feel the flat wallet with the fake passport on his chest, leather string around the back of his neck. _Still there. You lucky fuckin’ drunk, you coulda lost everything in the bar or puking up your guts in the alley._ Wallet’s still in his front pocket, more money in his belt. And cash all over the US in safety deposit boxes, odd amounts, about $10K each. No piker, is Michael Caffee.

“What name you using?”

“It’s on my I.D.”

“What name you using, _Mike_?”

He sighs. “Mike Rose.” He has I.D.s all over the US too, in different names.

Armando laughs. “ _Una flora_? You look like anything but a flower, mang.”

“Ever heard of Pete Rose? Baseball player?”

Armando nods, slowing the car prior to lining up at the border crossing. “Don’t fuck me up, _Rose_. Stay here.”

He stops curbside and dips into a cantina, and comes back, no gun.

Michael’s hot, and almost sunburned already. He sits in the sun, weighing options. El Paso, _fuck_. Armando hands him a half-liter plastic bottle of water. Cold. Michael smiles at him. “Thanks, _mang_.”

“Fuck you, _cabron_.” Armando grins, cracking the cap on his own water. “Next stop, El Paso.”

 

 


End file.
